Every week, sometimes more than once per week, I share news reports of cops molesting, sexually harassing, sexually assaulting and even raping women and teen girls, and sometimes even men, boys or children. These reports appear on average every five days, but that’s only counting the incidents which are both reported and rise to the level of a crime; most rapes, molestations and other sexual misbehavior by cops falls short of an actual crime, and most of the crimes are not reported because most of the victims are wise enough to understand that their lives will be overturned and their affairs pried into by “investigators” with very little chance of the rapist cop suffering even the slightest consequences (unless you call a paid vacation a “consequence”). Most regular readers know that I myself was raped by cops in May of 1995, but today I’d like to share all of the other incidents of sexual harassment that, while they weren’t quite crimes (though a couple of them certainly constituted malfeasance and abuse), may give you an idea of how frequently cops try to apply sexual pressure of one kind or another on women. With the exception of the cops when I was arrested for prostitution in 2005, none of these knew I was a sex worker (and before September of ’97 I wasn’t, not full time anyway); they and others like them are out there in their tens of thousands, making life more difficult and scarier for any attractive woman who has the misfortune to cross their paths.
First, there was the one in my (small) home town who carried a grudge against me for over 10 years because I wouldn’t date him in high school; as an adult cop in the early ’90s he delighted in stalking me to give me tickets. It only stopped when he tried to frame me for an accident in which an elderly man ran a stop sign and slammed into my car; my mother was furious, so she went to the sheriff and reported him. That one had a happy ending; the sheriff actually refunded me the costs of several of the tickets the guy had written in the past year. But had the town been bigger and my mother not had a political connection that allowed her to gain the sheriff’s ear? Forget it. In the spring of 1989, a cop who had pulled me over on some dumbass excuse forced me to walk about 800 meters along a busy highway at night in pumps and a none-too-long skirt to the nearest service station to call a friend to come and get me and my car, which he wouldn’t let me drive because he claimed my license was suspended. I later discovered (when I contested the FOUR tickets he gave me) not only that it wasn’t, but that this cop had a long history of humiliating attractive young women (the tickets were dismissed because the DA & judge were so sick of hearing about him). Then on two separate occasions, both in the ’90s, state troopers pulled me over on I-10 and asked me for a date; the second one had the nerve to do it after he wrote me a ticket for some kind of bullshit like a burned-out brake light. That was the same excuse used by a cop in the town nearest my Oklahoma ranch to stop me not once but twice, about a month apart; after the second one I went straight to the police chief and told him if it happened again I’d know it was harassment and would not stay quiet about it. Surprise; it never happened again. Another pig in that same small town (< 20,000 people) stopped me for some BS on three separate occasions when I was out in my convertible. He never gave me a ticket, just wanted to gawk at the hot chick in the cool car, so I thought it was best to leave well enough alone on that one.
When I was arrested for prostitution after Katrina, a jail cop wanted me forced to strip in front of male guards and prisoners; the female guard refused and told him off, and to her credit stuck to her guns even after he tried to cite “regulations” at her (which, judging by her reaction, he clearly had never tried to invoke before for female prisoners he didn’t find attractive). Then one night a week and a half ago, a Seattle cop who pulled up beside me at a traffic light then proceeded to tail-gate me for 11 blocks, even when I changed lanes (twice) and turned into another street; he didn’t give up until I turned into my own street, which is not a through street (I guess that would’ve been a bit too obvious). On another occasion in the ’80s, a cop tailed me with lights flashing in a secluded part of I-10; following my then-boyfriend’s advice I refused to pull over until I got to a brightly-lit filling station. And as I exited the freeway, the cop turned off his lights, accelerated and kept going. I don’t want to think about what might’ve happened in those pre-cell phone days had I pulled over.
There are probably other incidents I’m not remembering right now, but I think you’ll get the idea. And I’m willing to bet most every woman reading this has at least a couple of similar stories. But go on, authoritarians, tell me how cops are there to “protect” women, and how we’re supposed to feel “safe” around them, and how they’re the only ones who should have guns. But you’ll have to pardon me if I spit in your face when you do.
